Can McKinsey’s Lebanon Economic Vision work for agriculture?

For what it is worth, the current outlook for Lebanon’s crop of traditional cereals, such as wheat, barley and maize, is not plastered with red flags. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says in its latest country briefing that weather conditions this winter were favorable and that estimates for the 2018 total cereal harvest were at the same level as for 2017, at 164,000 tonnes. The organization noted that in the domestic context, while “limited by landscape, production of fruits and vegetables is important in terms of GDP contribution and employment.” This is of course, without taking into account alleged or potential impacts from a mid-April cold spell on crops at Lebanon’s higher elevations. The agricultural economy in Lebanon is plagued by the same recent past as every sector: it languished through a quarter century that was lost in communal squabbles and exploited by self-absorbed rentier “elites.” The sector also